We've made some changes to this year's UK Lotusphere Comes To You event - not only is set to be the biggest LCTY yet, we are also confident we're onto a winning formula! The stage is taking shape. The date is fast approaching and there's a real buzz of excitement in the air. Not wanting to keep this to ourselves, we have launched the first LCTY blog, so you can get the inside scoop.
Submitted on: 26-03-2008
I have been talking to many customers in recent months about Social Networking, not surprising from my point of view as it is part of the portfolio (Lotus Connections) that I look after. What I find more surprising (and probably shouldn't) is that on every occasion the conversation is interesting and well informed. This says to me that in spite of what you might see in some of the media, Social Networking is not (just) for teenagers and geeks, but is being urgently considered in a business environment.
Sure many companies are looking hard at Facebook and MySpace use (some have even banned it), but many see tools such as blogs, corporate directories and communities of expertise (not to mention Social Bookmarking and tagging) as a way to open up their companies internally and start sharing knowledge that we all know is locked up in employees (and bosses) heads.
There is no doubt that companies are looking for ways to help with the discovery and management of knowledge and skills. So it is no surprise that IBM/Lotus are looking to see how they can extend collaboration into this area.........what maybe more of a surprise is that internally we have been doing this for over 5 years, we have seen the benefits of being able to find skilled resources easily, discover what are colleagues think and publish information from an individual or group on one side of the world which will help people on another......this is social networking...and it has benefits.
Indeed the analyst firm Gartner suggests knowledge management should be defined as an attempt to formalise the management of intellectual assets - and under such a wide definition, Gartner suggests more than 50 per cent of organisations are engaged in some sort of activity aimed at managing the information their employees know, collect and use. We believe that we can make this easier.
That is what we are trying to do with Lotus Connections, it's NOT about Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Plaxo,Bebo, Twitter etc. It IS about deploying easy to use collaborative tools that focus on people networking and having the ability to easily publish and find information and determine whether the person who published the information is someone who's opinion I should respect and that the information itself is reliable.
At Lotusphere Comes to You, we will show you how we think we can unlock the real benefits of Social Networking - for Business.
Brendan Tutt
Portal/Dynamic Workplace Leader, IBM UKISA
A couple of weeks ago I attended an event hosted by the Butler Group. Unlike most Lotus events where we tend to see our existing customers, here I met with customers using other e-mail and collaboration solutions... and as you would expect, some of those were running Microsoft Exchange. I always like to ask Exchange customers about what they think of the challenges of the Exchange roadmap, and so I got heavily engaged in some conversations. Then I pulled out the Lotusphere Comes To You printed invite and suggested they come along to see what we had to offer.
Three times I received the same response... "Oh, we wouldn't be interested, we use Exchange".
Naturally I responded to this, and here are my thoughts. If a customer uses Exchange and therefore doesn't show any interest in IBM Lotus, does that mean they think Lotus Notes / Domino is all we provide? Or do they assume that the other solutions in the Microsoft portfolio are the only other options available to them?
The IBM Lotus development teams have worked hard to ensure our solutions fit within a Microsoft-centric environment. Lotus Sametime integrates with Microsoft Office and Outlook. We provide connectors to make Lotus Quickr document libraries available to Microsoft Outlook, Office and Windows Explorer. IBM Lotus Connections integrates with Microsoft Office. The list goes on.
In 2007, a third of new Lotus Sametime customers used Microsoft Outlook / Exchange. There must be a reason why these customers selected Lotus Sametime over Microsoft's own real-time collaboration offerings. Aren't those reasons worth exploring?
Here's my challenge to Microsoft Exchange customers - if you only ever look to Microsoft to provide you with capabilities then you'll only ever be able to achieve what they offer you. At Lotusphere Comes To You you'll get a chance to learn about other capabilities which could help you to innovate, collaborate and achieve business goals in ways that you can't today.
Darren Adams
Messaging & Collaboration Business Unit Leader, IBM UKISA
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We don't use Lotus Notes/Domino for corporate email here at all, but we use it heavily for its workflow and database/Web capacities.
Sure it has e-mail services in it, but I tend to think of it as a mail-enabled database development framework for heavy applications rather than as my email client system provider.
That's a really significant marketing area that IBM has never really fully grasped or properly presented in my view. Notes/Domino doesn't have to be just about Corporate email - though you might well get some leverage into the Corporate world on the back of it being a hugely valuable Rapid Development environment for almost anything you ever wanted to do.
Submitted by David Clover on 25-03-2008.
The Open University - IT Development Manager
We received great feedback from Lotusphere from the press and Analysts and we want to share what made them enthusiastic with you at LCTY in Wembley and Manchester.
Not related to our event Gartner have issued their predictions for Web Conferencing and Team Collaboration, I reproduce below........the bold text is mine, this is how I see the predictions relating to key parts of our technology. Hopefully after LCTY you will agree:
Gartner predicts continued strong growth across both markets in EMEA with the web conferencing software market projected to more than double from $310m in 2007 to $694m in 2011 and the team collaboration software market not quite doubling from $109m to $183m in 2011. Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa are still marginal in terms of market size but are expected to show faster growth as one would expect.
The highly attractive growth rates for these software markets will lead to a lot of investment focus by vendors, say Gartner, and to major changes in commercialised products and to how they are priced and licensed. The merging of communications and collaboration technologies (Unified Communications and Collaboration - UCC) is one such trend that is beginning to evolve which will provide the users with a more fully integrated experience. But there is a number of other trends helping to drive demand. These include...
Investments in software infrastructure — Deployment of innovative software infrastructure investments (such as enterprise portals).
Technological and functional evolutions — Improved virtual/distributed team project management.
Knowledge sharing — Development of knowledge sharing through communities of practice.
Knowledge management — More-structured searching of and access to information that has been classified, organised and managed.
Governance — Improved compliance, control and accountability because contracts, policies, business records and other documents can be securely shared with proper management oversight.
Functional integration — Integration with content management and other content-centric technologies, as well as with business processes and workflows, to streamline process flows and enhance information exchange.
Web 2.0 and consumerisation — Social software, Web 2.0 technologies and trends, and consumer-centric technologies are expanding the scope and capabilities of team collaboration and shared work spaces.
Brendan Tutt
Portal/Dynamic Workplace Leader, IBM UKISA
As the date of Lotusphere Comes To You fast approaches we’re tackling the perennial problem of how to shoe-horn four days of content and announcements into just one day. As problems go it’s a fun problem, but we’re taking it very seriously to ensure that we deliver the best possible value to our attendees who, after all, are giving up a day of their time.
This year we’ve taken a slightly different approach in how we’re going to deliver the agenda. Rather like the real Lotusphere, we've requested abstracts from potential speakers (mainly our Business Partner community) and we’ve selected the best and most relevant for inclusion. This will provide some variety, and also a different perspective and a different set of experiences to what you would get from the usual suspects in the Lotus brand of the IBM Software Group.
One other thought – I’m all for making Lotusphere Comes To You more like the real Lotusphere. Well, we can’t arrange any Florida sunshine, but we can supply caffeine-based beverages to whip you the audience into a state of excitement. Lotusphere tends to be very casual in terms of attire… but we are British, so let’s just say that suits and ties are optional and business-casual is the order of the day.
Darren Adams
Messaging & Collaboration Business Unit Leader, IBM UKISA
